March 30, 2011

Observations from a 2-1 shootout loss

It would have been really nice for the Stars to get two points in Glendale, Ariz. on Tuesday. As coach Marc Crawford said, they deserved it. But they have to just keep their head focused and move forward and hope for the best. Getting one point is better than none, and with Nashville and Chicago losing, there is a ray of sunshine there. They still control their fate, and can go a long way in making this happen if they win their next three games. That said, it would have been nice to put a little bit of fear in the Coyotes. They have just four games remaining, and they have not taken care of business enough so that they were safe yet. But now with 95 points, they probably are in the playoffs for sure. And that's just one less team the Stars can think about catching. So they must chase Anaheim and Chicago with fervor and hope for the best. The Stars are not out of the picture by any means, but they are pushing the option that they need to go undefeated in the final four games against Columbus, Colorado, Colorado and Minnesota. They also are pushing the option that if they get into the playoffs, they will almost assuredly have to play Vancouver in the first round. And that's not easy to embrace, but any spot in the playoffs is better than none, right? Here are some post-game quotes from Phoenix PR: Phoenix Coyotes Head Coach Dave Tippett On the effort put forth tonight: “I thought we were a lot more desperate in everything that we did. We still made some errors but our desperation to clean up errors was much better. We gave up a lot of shots, but a lot from outside. They had a lot of intent to dump a lot of pucks at Bryzie [Bryzgalov] and I thought we handled that very well. I think that team would look at that as a must win for them, and we were still trying to squeeze by with the lineup we have and for us to get two points out of there is a huge win for our team.” On Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov’s game: “He was a focused guy all day today so we knew he would have a bounce back game. You watch him in morning skate and he’s just really dialed in. He was solid.” Phoenix Coyotes Captain Shane Doan On Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov: “[Bryzgalov] was phenomenal. We were better in some areas, but we have a long way to go to get back to where we control the play and play the game that we need to. We can’t rely on [Bryzgalov] that much, even though he’s been that good. But, we were better tonight.” On the intensity of tonight’s game: “For sure, it was one of those things where we couldn’t wait for something to happen, we couldn’t wait for them to get the lead and try to respond to them or try to respond to them playing in our zone.” On Dallas’ offensive game: “Yeah we gave them a little too much space. They have some skilled forwards, and defensemen that join the play really well. We need to just hold them down a little bit more. Again, they threw a lot of pucks from outside and we controlled the house.”Phoenix Coyotes Forward Vernon Fiddler On returning to the lineup: “Yeah, you know you’re driving home and you don’t know what’s going to go on. It’s frustrating, and the trainers are frustrated too, but they did a great job. It’s just confidence and getting out there, getting hit the first time; it was actually a pretty good test. We’re happy to get the two points and carry on to the next game against Colorado.” On the leaders and veterans stepping up: “Yeah, absolutely. I think all the guys, not just the guys with the letters on their jerseys, everybody stepped up and led in their ways and you know, right from the beginning of the game I thought we had everybody going. It’s a good effort, it’s a good two points and take a couple of days to rest and recover and get back at it.” Dallas Stars Head Coach Marc Crawford On tonight’s game: “We deserved to win tonight and we didn’t get it. I told the guys after the game, if we have efforts like that we’re going to win 95 to 98 percent of our games. Their goalie was terrific tonight, he was the difference for them and they needed every one of the saves that they got. It was a great game. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t catch the Coyotes on a bad night or anything like that, they battled hard. I thought we were the better team. I thought we outshot them two to one, we probably out-chanced them two to one in the game, and in the end they found a way to win in a shootout.”On getting points on this road trip: “You just have to get every point you can when you can get it. It’s been that way all year and it’ll continue to be like that.”Dallas Stars Goaltender Kari Lehtonen On tonight’s game: “I think we played very well, almost 50 shots. I think we were the better team out there, which is a great thing, but we were not able to get pucks past (Phoenix goaltender Ilya) Bryzgalov and he played very well for them.”On getting a point tonight: “We take every point we can get right now and we just need to keep playing and hopefully we can play the same way (on the rest of the road trip) and we should be good.”Dallas Stars Forward Jamie Benn On getting a point tonight: “I thought we played a good enough game to get two points, but we’ll take one.”